A WRITER'S WIT​We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.Helen ThomasBorn August 4, 1920 Winchester, KYDied July 20, 2013 Washington, DC

H. Thomas

MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirty-fourth post of fifty.

Kentucky (1994)

One of the hottest drives Ken and I ever made was in 1994, when we ventured across Indiana into Kentucky to visit with friends I’d taught with at one of my schools. They were (and are) a fun couple. They lived in a rather rustic setting, and we enjoyed the lush scenery on our drive through the state. I believe we drank great quantities of Kentucky bourbon.

Kentucky is the fifteenth state and celebrated its bicenquinquagenary in 2017.

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.​Steven SpielbergBorn on December 18, 1947

My Book World

Unspoken indeed. Professor Anderson takes readers through the long yet decisive history of White Rage. It is a history that has lain directly beneath the noses of all Americans but one that has been covered up, ignored, or outright distorted, as well. Anderson revives for readers the five primary events in US history which incite and keep alive White Rage.

First, following the Civil War, former Confederates refuse actually to take Reconstruction seriously, and the North ignores the South’s refusal. Two, as a direct result of this action, freed African-Americans migrate north, only to find they are no more welcome there than they have been in the South. In places, rejection is even more hostile, more vitriolic. Three, White Rage is incited with the Brown vs. Topeka decision to integrate American schools, and at least two decades are spent in fighting or rolling back provisions of this decision—making most school districts as segregated as they ever were. Four, the author delineates how Ronald Reagan’s white-rage leadership reverses, insidiously, the Civil Rights gains of the 1960s and 1970s. And last, Anderson reiterates what contemporary readers have witnessed for themselves, how the election of an African-American president, Barack Obama, once again incites White Rage, a backlash that results in the questionable election of Donald Trump.

Anderson’s book reinforces the recent writings of other black authors, Ta-Nehisi Coates, for one. She doesn’t mention reparations, but my thinking is that our country will never be at rest, can never truly hold its head up among nations until it has, in more than a symbolic manner, attempted to make reparations to the descendants of slavery. It won’t be difficult to determine who qualifies. The government will be able to use the same visible trait it used to discriminate, and that is the color of one’s skin. Anyone with African-American lineage should qualify for funding for free education, help with daily living expenses until one is independent. Not only that, but the trillions of dollars that were accrued by this nation during slavery off the backs of black men and women, should be multiplied to, in some manner, make it up to our dark-skinned brethren. Their ancestors were captured on their native soil, mauled, maligned—treated more harshly than work animals—and the surviving generations of victims of White Rage deserve recompense. The one percent will have to pay their fair share to ensure that this happens, along with the rest of us, but it must be done. And it must be done with an amount of good will and love. The fires of White Rage must be quelled forever. Only then can our nation heal.

A WRITER'S WIT​We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.Zelda FitzgeraldBorn July 24, 1900Montgomery, AlabamaDied March 10, 1948Ashville, North Carolina

MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirty-third post of fifty.

Alabama (1994)

Ken and I stayed in Tuscaloosa on one of our sojourns to Myrtle Beach. In 1981, I wrote a fan letter to author Lonnie Coleman, who had enchanted me with his Beulah Landand Mark, a novel about a young gay man at the University of Alabama in the 1930s. How difficult it must have been to write about such a situation. I remember bursting into tears at the end of Mark. That alone was the reason for writing Coleman in October of 1981: I've never written a fan letter to an author before, and I'm not sure that's what this is. Nevertheless, I was compelled to tell you how much I enjoyed your recent novel, Mark. I was gratified when he wrote back:

For a state that holds such a horrible reputation for civil rights, it also boasts quite a list of literary figures. Entire novels have been written about the anguished relationships between slaves and their so-called owners, perhaps attempting to atone.

​Alabama is the nation’s twenty-second state and celebrates its bicentennial in 2019.

The thing about having a very young audience in the theatre is that sometimes they laugh at the bullying scenes. It's really interesting, what that means. It still confuses me slightly, you know; someone's getting quite brutally bullied on stage and people are laughing. I think it's very hard being young.​Jack ThorneBorn December 6, 1978

A WRITER'S WITThe Venturer is one who keeps his eye on the hedgerows and wayside groves and meadows while he travels the road to Fortune.O. HenryBorn September 11, 1862Greensboro NCDied June 5, 1910​New York NY

O. Henry

MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the thirty-second post of fifty.

North Carolina (1990)

On one Myrtle Beach trip, Ken and I rented a car and drove to our friends’ home in western Virginia. Driving through North Carolina, I was struck with the notion that its African-American residents had ancestors who had lived in the state far longer than many of its white ancestors, and yet the political balance always seemed to sway in the other direction. That situation does seem to be changing.

​North Carolina is the twelfth of the thirteen original colonies and celebrated its bicenquinquagenary in 2014.

We must work to stabilize Social Security. We must not gamble with our nation's social insurance program, one of our most popular and effective federal programs that has remained dependable and stable for the past seventy years.​Grace NapolitanoBorn December 4, 1936